La llista

From Canada by way of La Brutal comes this monologue by Jennifer Tremblay, winner of the Prix du Gouverneur Général 2008 en théâtre. A woman makes seemingly banal lists of things to do. Laia Marull is this woman, directed by the actress Allegra Fullton, who played the lead in the original production.

A play for an actress. A woman who avoids life. The plot consists of short phrases that reveal her inner world and help us to find out about her life and the reason for her regrets. It is a universal text reflecting a society that is increasingly distant from what is essential, lost in everyday obligations and disconnected from the simple things in life. An opportunity to change. A story in list format.
I first found out about the work of Jennifer Tremblay in 2010, with La llista [The list], the winner of the Governor General's Award, when I was asked to act at the Nightwood Theatre in Toronto. Later, in 2014 I came across the sequel, The Carouselproduced by the same theatre. They were both international premières in English. And they were both a great success and led me to a deeper understanding of Jennifer Tremblay's theatrical voice.
Since then, La llista has been translated into many languages and produced in many countries all over the world, but so far it has not been staged in either Catalonia or in Spain.La llista is a rigorous, demanding and appealing monologue which poetically tells the story of a woman who suffers in a terrible situation in our busy modern world. While she does a balancing act to reconcile her family life, marriage, duty and pleasure, something calls into question her carefully constructed world. We see how she has to take her assumptions about herself apart. Finally, her dilemma is a beautiful and captivating portrait one of the facets of today's woman. This role requires a great actress.
I have known Laia Marull for over ten years. I met her when she was filming in Montreal and we became friends. Because we are both actresses, our conversation has often about the interesting worlds in which we are immersed as performers; both the interior and the exterior worlds. Having done three, I know that doing a monologue is one of the rites of passage for any great actor, as experience is a great teacher and it is undoubtedly a way to grow as a performer. Knowing Laia's work and her as a person, I think she is at the perfect point to do this piece.
My interest in directing her lies above all in telling this fascinating story with this wonderful actress. To tell this story. To create with my friend Laia. To produce a beautiful work of art. I see this piece as being done simply, with minimal projections, sound and lights on an almost bare stage, putting the focus on the performer and the text.Allegra Fulton